Details — as they emerge — at Hot Air. At the current end of his frequently updated post, Allahpundit links to Jim Geraghty, who writes:
David Schuster is offering a typical sneering tone, but it doesn’t make it any less accurate: “If it’s true that she’s leaving the governorship before her first term is complete, her national political career is done.”
A broken clock can be right twice a day, and Schuster is right here. If Sarah Palin wishes to someday be President of the United States, then she had to serve at least one full term in statewide office. (Yes, Obama had been in the Senate for about two years before running for president, but he had a lot of stars align for him at the right moment. Beyond that, at some point, “but Obama did it that way” isn’t a persuasive argument.)
Departing with little or no warning, after about 30 months in office, is beyond surprising. I’m sure the Lieutenant Governor will do fine, but there’s definately a sense of leaving with work unfinished and as her career was just beginning to take off.
Found via Michelle Malkin, the Anchoress writes:
Either she or someone in her family is ill, and she wants to keep it private and not subject it to the vulgarity of the Palin-hating beasts in the press, who savaged her last year, or…she and Todd are on the rocks, and she doesn’t want to subject her children and her marriage to the same vulgarity.
Can’t say I blame her in either case. And I hope I’m wrong on both counts.
But nothing else makes sense, does it?
Not at the moment, although this story is clearly “breaking” and “developing”, as Matt Drudge would say.
More links found via the Professor, who adds, “I don’t know if it has anything to do with her decision, but she’s been subjected — along with her family — to more abuse than any other non-national-officeholder I can think of.”
Don Surber adds: “to quit now makes no sense. This only raises more doubts over whether she can shake her image as a lightweight national joke.” He links to:
Dr. Charles Krauthammer: “She is — she has star power without any doubt. She has an extremely devoted following. But she is not a serious candidate for the presidency.”
Jonah Goldberg to Palin: “Stay home and do your job and your homework. You’ll still be a national figure come the primaries. But if you can’t surprise your detractors with your grasp of policy when you re-emerge on the national stage, you won’t win the nomination. More important, you won’t deserve to.”
As Don writes, “We will see how this turns out. Savior of the party and the nation, or Wendell Willkie — followed by a lifetime of Harold Stassen?”
Update: With an unwitting assist from the Politico’s Mike Allen, “John Ziegler Exposes How Palin Derangement Syndrome Works.”
Update: You stay classy, HuffPo: “Lest you have any doubt that attacks on her family might indeed have weighed heavily in Sarahcuda’s decision to resign, feast your eyes on this screencap. Frankly, I’m amazed she hung in this long.”
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9 Comments
1. The Anchoress — A First Things Blog:[...] Driscoll: Recapping where some on right were wary of Palin 5:10 [...]
Jul 3, 2009 - 2:10 pm 2. David Thomson:I suspect that Sarah Palin has a legitimate reason for resigning. She is also not going to disappear. Palin will mostly likely turn herself into another Margaret Thatcher. She will read and study and become more knowledgeable about foreign and domestic issues. Of course, Palin already puts Barack Obama and Joe Biden to shame. Neither is even remotely close to being her intellectual equal. But we don’t live in a fair world. The voters expect more from Republicans. They hold them to a higher standard.
Jul 3, 2009 - 2:17 pm 3. Sarah Palin Career Change; Sets Sights on National Level Politics; Will not seek new term as Governor of Alaska « VotingFemale Speaks!:[...] Ed Driscoll » Gov. Palin: Resigning In Weeks? [...]
Jul 3, 2009 - 2:27 pm 4. David Thomson:Somebody in Sarah Palin’s family is ill. It may even be her. And if I’m wrong—her political career is over.
Jul 3, 2009 - 3:07 pm 5. jvon:While we’re on the subject: I would like to take this opportunity to thank HuffPo for posting a breakdown of my political contributions on their site, along with a helpful map to my former residence for any deranged loons who felt motivated to slash my tires, strangle my cat, etc. Thanks.
Jul 3, 2009 - 7:33 pm 6. Sissy Willis:Mark Steyn says it best:
National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.
Jul 4, 2009 - 4:19 am 7. Sarah Palin Unleashed; Socialist Party and Media scared and desperate « VotingFemale Speaks!:[...] Ed Driscoll » Gov. Palin: Resigning In Weeks? [...]
Jul 4, 2009 - 6:09 am 8. Joef:If Sarah Palin’s national aspirations are really over, then it is indeed our loss.
I lived for twenty years in Alaska, and the main reason I went there was to live and raise a family in the clean clarity of a vast near-wilderness where the politics were vigorous but manageable and only God and Nature prevailed. There was no possibility of a Messiah, the One, rising to power, for he would have been seen for what he was early on and laughed right out of the state. No such lame BS there.
With George Bush gone, Sarah Palin was the next target for the derangement-syndromers, and I can imagine just how peculiar and repugnant that may seem to the Palins. Alaska is a place with its share of oddballs, but mad drooling fiends are rare and kept pushed somewhere in the background where they belong — with the messiahs, I guess. You can keep them away from your kids, anyway.
If you saw Sarah Palin’s video, then you saw the lake and mountains in the background. She said that lake and all that lies beyond always lends perspective to her and her family and their decisions. I understand that. Every day on my way to work in Juneau I drove past a large wetland full of Canada geese, eagles, salmon, and myriad other wildlife. It informed my day, charged my imagination, and reminded me of our place on this earth.
The Alaska governors I knew –yes, you often actually meet your governor if you live there — held their office as a sacred trust. Unless you are a dysfunctional idiot, and there has never been one of those for governor of Alaska, you cannot occupy the office without feeling the responsibility and privilege of leading such an awesome state. Your constituents are your neighbors, for good or ill, and you do everything to help take care of them and their resources.
You can take Sarah at her word. Response to the unrelenting and degenerate vitriol following her VP candidacy was simply costing too much time and money — time and money that rightfully belonged to Alaskans, who never signed up for all that when they elected her as Governor. It was getting in the way of serving, so the responsible choice for Palin was simply to keep her head up and pass the ball. If you lived beside that lake of hers, or gazed at those mountains every morning, it would not seem a startling choice at all.
It’s been said that people get the government they deserve. It does not presage well for our country if we don’t deserve candidates as good as Sarah Palin.
Jul 4, 2009 - 6:25 am 9. markde43008:I’m nobody, just a medically retired working class guy, a vet, conservtive, with two minor children and a good wife. Nobody special,. and I really like Sarah,. she awoke feelings I hadn’t had since Reagan took his oath the first time.
I still believe in her, and I hope, she isn’t done with us yet.
We’ll need a decent unifying figure, which she can be, once we kill the idiot propaganda campaign the left has waged against her. We’ll need to rebuild this country when Obama’s done trashing it in 12, she can be the one we need, a new figure not tied to the second tier, the wanna be’s,..
I,.. we believe in her still, my wife too, a democrat, and my daughter who won’t vote till 2018. If she can make it an issue of a capable woman being attacked by women bashing liberal men,. she may not get the hags of NOW, but she already got my wife’s vote for that reason.
Keeping my fingers crossed, and hoping that Ron is having a quiet word with the man upstairs, please,. let it be her.
fingers crossed.
Jul 4, 2009 - 10:29 amSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.